ANGELINA DOHRE
Ad Sales Manager
Returning for a third year, the annual Operation Winter Rescue clothing and food drive will be sponsored by Alpha Phi Omega Chi Pi and the Chautauqua County Rural Ministry.
The drive was started in 2018 by Alpha Phi Omega’s then Vice President of Service, Lucas Butchko.
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In addition to clothing, this is the second year the service fraternity is also accepting non-perishable food items.
Junior adolescent social studies education and history double major, Amanda McDonough, is the current vice president of service for Alpha Phi Omega.
According to McDonough, the goal behind this drive is to help those in the community who are less fortunate, especially during the harsh winter months.
“Dunkirk is more of a poorer area and they usually need a lot of help getting clothing donated, so we just wanted to be able to help donate clothes wherever we can,” McDonough said. “We wanted to be able to help them and contribute to their garment gallery so people have clothes in general that they might not be able to get themselves.”
McDonough and her two assistants, Steven Morocho and Emily Staniszewski, are in charge of most of the work that goes into the drive, including spreading the word to the public.
They’ve worked closely with Joyce Smith from the Volunteer and Community Services office to ensure the success of Operation Winter Rescue.
According to McDonough, the past two drives turned out very successful.
“From what I remember, the one year we had at least 20 boxes,” she said. “We’ve taken up one entire room just with boxes.”
Staniszewski, a junior childhood inclusive education major, is confident that this year’s drive will have a good donation turnout.
“Since we are pretty much the only ones who do something like this on campus, I have lots of confidence that it will be just as successful, if not more successful than in the past.”
Senior journalism major, Maci Cosmore, is the fraternity’s current president.
She has previously taken part in the Operation Winter Rescue drive and would like to continue this drive in the future.
“A lot of the brothers were also really interested in trying to do sock donations, because we know that’s something that lacks in thrift stores and homeless shelters,” she said.
The drive is taking place on campus from Feb. 18-20.
Boxes will be placed in all of the residence halls and in the lobby of McEwen Hall.
Members of Alpha Phi Omega will be in room G103C in the Williams Center on Feb. 21 from 9 to 5 p.m. to collect donations as well.